First wind farm in Saudi Arabia and largest in Middle East begins production

The landmark 400MW Dumat Al Jandal wind farm, the first for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the largest in the Middle East, has officially been connected to the country’s grid and has begun generating power.

Developed by a consortium led by French renewable developer EDF Renewables and Middle East renewable developer Masdar, the 400MW wind farm consists of 99 wind turbines each with an output of 4.2MW, supplied by Vestas.

Construction has yet to be officially completed, as the remaining wind turbines continue to be erected, but connection to the grid does not always require the final turbine to be installed.

The consortium building the wind farm submitted a bid of just $US21.30 a megawatt hour in an auction conducted by Saudi authorities.

“It is an honor to contribute to the Kingdom’s energy transition with the start of the production of Dumat Al Jandal wind farm, the most powerful in the Middle East,” said Olivier Bordes, CEO of EDF Renewables Middle East.

Located 900-kilometres north of Saudi Arabia’s capital of Riyadh, the Dumat Al Jandal wind farm is expected to generate electricity equivalent to the needs of 70,000 Saudi households each year, while avoiding 988,000-tonnes of CO2 each year.

Electricity generated by the Dumat Al Jandal wind farm will be supplied to the Saudi Power Procurement Company, a subsidiary of the Saudi Electricity Company (SEC), the Saudi power generation and distribution company, under a 20-year power purchase agreement.

“We are delighted to start the early power production of this unique large-scale wind project in [the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia] – Dumat Al Jandal wind farm,” said Olivier Marchand, project director of the Dumat Al Jandal Wind.

“We are now looking forward to successfully reaching, with our partners and contractors, the full commissioning of the project in the months to come.”